The weekly roundup – funerals and cupcakes edition

I’m making an effort to start these up again, to get myself writing more often. And I’m using the Magic of the Internet to post this one in the past, due to a slight hiccup with my hosting provider.

1. My uncle died last week, and so I spent a good portion of this week in transit so that I could make the funeral. My brothers both made it out as well, which meant that the three of us got to squish into the backseat of the rental Kia. You can guess who got the middle seat. I remember going to a cousin’s funeral, back when I was still married, and thinking about what a beautiful community my cousin had built and comparing that to my own life and social circles, which was limited almost entirely to my husband. This time, as I looked around at the community who came for my uncle’s funeral, I thought about all the various connections I’ve made in the past few years, all the community building and volunteering I’ve done, and had a moment of profound gratitude for all the people I’ve made part of my life.

2. Speaking of community, I finally managed to get to the Sex Positive Womxn’s Sangha yesterday. I love that I’ve created something that doesn’t need me present to happen – and I love even more when I am able to show up.

3. Interested in hanging out with me? I’ve been running a social experiment the last few months with an Activity Buddies Google Form, as a way to increase the amount of friend dates in my calendar. It’s definitely producing interesting results.

4. Z made red velvet cupcakes this week, almost entirely solo. I’m equal parts proud of them and concerned that I no longer have an office to take baked goods into. If you’re local and willing to take extra goodies off my hands, let me know!

5. I ordered a Little Free Library kit a few months ago, and it’s sat in the corner of the dining room waiting for me to have time to tackle it. I’m hopeful that my dad and Z will be able to get it assembled, painted, and installed while my dad’s in town the next few weeks, but it’s entirely possible that it will spend the next few years half assembled in the basement.

You should have asked: French webcomic artist Emma has a great explanation of the mental load and how this invisible aspect of household labor is borne almost entirely by women.

I’ve been loving Heather Cox Richardson’s Letters from an American, which takes the political events happening today and situates them in an historical context. It never ceases to amaze me just how often history repeats.

I was recently given this recipe for the world’s moistest chocolate cupcakes, and if you can get past the inordinate amount of times the word moist is used, the recipe is pretty spectacular.

Ginger Molasses Cupcakes

What do you do on a rainy Sunday evening when all the showings of The Hunger Games are sold out? Make ginger cupcakes with brown sugar cream cheese frosting.

Ginger Cupcake

Adapted from Martha Stuart’s Ginger and Molasses Cupcakes

Cupcakes
3 cups all-purpose flour
2 tsp baking soda
2 tsp salt
1 cup dark brown sugar, packed
2/3 cup unsulfured molasses
2 large eggs
1 cup (2 sticks) melted butter
1/3 cup hot milk
6 oz fresh ginger, peeled and minced

Mince the ginger. A husband who’s handy with a knife is a plus.

Mincing the ginger.

Whisk together flour, baking soda, and salt.

In another bowl, whisk together sugar, molasses and eggs until smooth. Whisk in melted butter and the hot milk. Add a generous splash of spiced rum if you’d like. Stir in flour mixture until just incorporated, then stir in the ginger.

Adding the ginger

Bake at 350 until a toothpick in the center comes out clean, about 20 minutes.

The Frosting
1/2 cup (1 stick) butter, room temperature
8 oz cream cheese, room temperature
1 cup brown sugar, packed
1 tsp cardamom
1 tbs spiced rum

Whip together butter, cream cheese, and sugar in a mixing bowl. Stir in cardamom and rum until just mixed, then whip until lightened in color, about 5 minutes.

Combine frosting and cupcakes. Enjoy.

“Snowflake”

1.  I have fallen completely, utterly in love with the new Kate Bush album, 50 Words for Snow.  Late to the ball on this one, I know, but I thought it was a Christmas album, and I refuse to even go near those.  However, after finding the album on Spotify I thought I’d give it a listen (especially since none of the titles of the tracks seemed Christmasy).  It blew my mind.  I finished most of the last 100 pages of Persephone with it playing in the background.

2.  Somewhere around the third draft of Persephone, I realized that I needed to rethink the whole plot thing.  By which I meant that in order to do the rewrite I had to sit down and plot out the whole novel, and then go back through what I’d written and refit it into the plot.   Figuring out what happened in the damn book was probably responsible for about 1 year of the rewrite.  (The other three I blame on law school.)  This last draft only took 8 months, and would have been even shorter if I’d started making myself wake up early and write every day back in August.

3.  I’ve had a new novel in my head for a month or so now, waiting patiently for me to plot it out.  Which, quite frankly, I’ve been dreading.  Part of what I love so much about writing is finding out what happens next.  I’ve always been afraid that if I stopped to plot it out, the magic would disappear, that I wouldn’t want to write a story if I already knew the ending.

I couldn’t have been farther from the truth.  Over the past few days, I’ve plotted the basic outline of the new novel.  I still need to sketch in the scenes, but I know where it starts, I know the crisis points and the resolutions, and I know how it ends.  And now that the skeleton is there, I’m even more excited to write it.  It’s oddly reminiscent of the moment I discovered the absolute freedom of poetic forms.

4.  I baked cupcakes earlier this week, and send a batch to Kat Howard.  Judging from her response, I think she liked them!  Recipe (which I created my very own self) after the break.

@KatWithSword  You guys. You guys! @thegirlhaswings SENT ME CUPCAKES. KEY LIME CUPCAKES. THAT SHE BAKED HERSELF. I am the Happiest of Kats.

Key Lime Cupcakes for Kat

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“The Candy Man Can”

My birthday ended up something of a bust this year, as it so often is.  Personally, I blame December.  Between snowstorms and the flu and Christmas break…  This year it was the end of the year push at work that did me in. My husband got me a wonderful chocolate cake, but when you’re coming home after midnight to blow our the candles, it looses something.

I decided to make up for it this weekend by making Oreo cookie cupcakes.  Recipe after the break.

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